4 posts tagged “vista”

Many months ago when I started this blog I'd just acquired a PowerMac G4 having rescued it from a skip, I installed OSX and started using it.  I enjoyed the experience but the Mac quickly fell into disuse as I still had all of my regular apps, email, music, etc. on the PC.  I couldn't have switched to the G4 as my PC was newer and more powerful and besides that I didn't really want to abandon the PC as a platform, until now. 

In order to make traveling easier and provide me with a little more flexibility I decided to get a laptop, I thought this would be an ideal time to make a first serious step into the Mac world so I went to the Apple Store on Regent's Street (London), watched their "Switch at Six" talk and spoke with a few employees about the practicalities and after much deliberation I bought the 13.3" Macbook.  Whilst the extra power of the Macbook Pro would be great I think the size makes it much less portable and when you start thinking about spending that much money on a laptop you might as well say "screw it" and buy an awesome desktop for the same money. 

I've had it for a few weeks now and I'm enjoying it, I've found that I'm using the Internet much more for fun as I can sit in the living room with the TV on and talk to my flatmate at the same time, I also can just pick it up and take it out with me if I need to.  I plan to clear some space on my desk so that I can run a cable to my 22" CRT to get a better experience for editing photos, etc. - but these are just benefits of having a laptop - so how am I finding the Mac?

Overall, it's been positive, I've had difficulty overcoming certain hurdles (lack of right mouse button, the fact I hate Preview) but in general I love some of the cool features such as: pressing F9 tiles all of your open applications and allows you to pick which one you want to use and F11 pushes all of your apps to the side of the screen so you can get access to your desktop.  They're only little things and probably exist in Vista but that's one of my reasons for switching - based on everything I've heard to date I really don't want Vista and am getting fed up of being tied to Microsoft software so this is my first step towards application freedom.  Now I barely use my PC and I'm wondering whether or not the Macbook will become my primary computer - time will tell I suppose.

Well, after about 4.5 seconds worth of thought I've decided to put my words where my mouth is (doesn't sound right but you know what I mean) and say what I think is gonna go down in 2007, this time in no particular order...

• Print Media Feels The Burn
  I may be mildly premature with this one, but I can feel it in my bones - the carcinogenic newsprint will hit the fan sometime soon and I think 2007 will be the beginning.  I'm sure print media has already had some reaction to the Internet and most of the UK broadsheets have pretty decent websites these days but for certain classes of publications I can foresee a major decline.  For instance, I hardly buy gaming magazines these days for two main reasons, (1) the news is usually 3-6 weeks out of date by the time they go to print, (2) the reviews and articles are so full of marketing bullshit and rubbish games regularly get good reviews because the mag got an exclusive demo/interview/shag and finally (3) the demos are all downloadable now so why bother paying for them?  I'm absolutely sure that those points apply to most monthly tech magazines and one other 'primary factor' in the decline is that newspapers / magazines are full of writers who write about things they barely understand.  Have you read any 'generic press' articles about IT, gaming or technology lately?  If you're really interested in something (anything) then you'll probably find a decent, articulate and well-informed blog / forum / news site on the web that's 100 times better than some pokey journo trying to meet a deadline. 
  
  
• Nintendo Kick Ass
  With the recent launch of the Wii and the massive public interest coming from traditional non-gamers I really think Nintendo are onto a winner (see: I Love My Wii) and Sony have still not really got their act together.  I'm still not ready to predict final winner in the battle but by the end of 2007 I would not be surprised if Nintendo are on top. 
  
  
• Watching The Computer
  People are going to spend much more time in 2007 pointing their LCD-hungry faces at computers this year than ever before.  This includes consoles, high-def video players, IPTV, mobile TV as well as the traditional fare such as YouTube, Google Video and the web. 
  
  
• The Corporate World
  After some relative calm I can see things turning bad for a major tech company this year, obvious choices would be people losing their identity such as AOL or Sun but perhaps it won't be such a good year for people like Dell or Yahoo. I predict that a few more social networking sites will be acquired by media companies this year, possibly bebo or facebook - also predict it won't do them much good.
  
  
• Operating Systems
  Last year started the war of next-generation consoles, 2007 sees the war between next-generation operating systems.  With the release of WIndows Vista and later in the year Leopard (Mac OS 10.5) this does look like an interesting year, I also foresee more manufacturers offering pre-installed (or embedded) Linux than they have in the past.  As for the outcome, obviously Vista will win but I'm even more sure that it will be plagued with bugs and security issues throughout the year.  I do however still think that Apple will notch-up their market share somewhat in 2007 - from people holding out for Leopard and people who just want something solid, dependable and easy to use and have been slowly wooed by the iPod. 
  

Well, that's the lot - I wish my predictive mental offspring well as they try and navigate the great wide world, and if you should meet one whilst you're traveling through 2007 please stop and say hello.  

So, I actually bothered watching the live stream of Bill Gates' keynote at CES - I love insomnia sometimes.  All in all it was relatively interesting, I paid special attention to the Xbox 360 section which announced their IPTV service (no details and cynicism/experience tells me it'll be US only).  Some cross-platform features of Xbox Live and Vista were mentioned, I like the idea but it'll be a while before it really catches on with PC users.  I posted my live notes about the Xbox 360 portion on the forums of the GamerCast Network, if you don't know about them please download and listen to their excellent podcasts, I listen to the Video Game Show, but they also host the extremely popular GamerTag Radio and Uncle Gamer Radio. 

There was also a bit of blathering about how great everyone thinks Gears of War is, I personally wasn't that fussed - if they made an FPS that was equally good looking I might be interested but as far as I'm concerned it looks great but plays distinctly average.  I heard someone describe it as a pretty version of whack-a-mole and honestly that's exactly what it is. 

They demoed some cool features in Vista which should be good once they've been service-packed to hell, my favourite was the integration with the Xbox 360 controller - I've got to find some use for the handful of spares I have lying around.  Other than that it was relatively uninspiring, they had the balls to mention both Urge and Zune even though they're both different incompatible products trying to achieve the same aim. 

Having had the Mac for a good few weeks now I thought it would be a good time to post my experiences back on the blog.  Initially I still found the user interface confusing as OS9 is quite different from Windows, I also had my suspicions confirmed in that there is almost no application support for legacy operating systems.  To get round this I decided to take the plunge and get a copy of OSX, this is a decision I do not regret in the slightest - it's great!

The install for OSX ran like a dream, though I'm not really sure how long it took as I was watching TV in the other room for the bulk of it.  Once it was up and running I downloaded all the patches (being a Windows user this made me feel at home) then got hold of the latest version of Firefox so I could start using the Mac in earnest. 

So far I've found it very enjoyable getting to know OSX, most things seem to be where you'd expect and I love that funny toolbar that pops up at the bottom for launching applications - much nicer than the Start Menu.  I decided to make the Mac my primary web-surfing machine and have moved it into the living room, saving my PC for more hard-core use as well as my email (I'm currently tied-in to Outlook). 

Every second I use OSX I am mentally comparing it to Windows and it's obviously way ahead of XP in terms of graphical niceties and general usability.  That said, Vista is hot on it's heels and in honesty the whole Aero/Glass thing beats OSX's graphical style hands down, MS are clearly taking their cues from Apple and hoping to go one step further. 

Of course, Apple will have a chance to bite back with Leopard so I'll keep watching that space and I'm sure Vista will usher-in a whole new world of security issues and bugs that need fixing - comments I've heard from Steve Gibson on the Security Now podcast have been quite alarming and I've stopped using my copy of Vista Beta 2 because of security concerns.  That said, I will hopefully receive Vista RC1 soon but I'll try that one inside a virtual machine if I can. 

On a final note I had a very helpful and friendly email conversation with a guy from my local Mac user group, if you're reading this - thanks, I may be in touch again once I've gotten to grips with things a bit more.  Also, I still find the Mac press to be over-zealous and have resolved not to buy magazines any more (barring useful cover disks) - I'll get my news from the MacBreak Weekly podcast (yet another great podcast from TWiT.tv.